Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB
[ocr errors]

1

his power who is the giver of victory, when the field is won, do vaunt of their own exploits; one telling how he got such a ground of advantage; another, how he gave check to such a battalion; a third, how he seized on the enemies cannon; every one striving to magnify himself, whilst all forget God, as one that had not been present in the action. To ascribe to fortune the effects of another man's virtue, is, I confess, an argument of malice. Yet this is true, that as he, which findeth better success than he did, or in reason might expect, is deeply bound to acknowledge God the author of his happiness; so he, whose mere wisdom and labour hath brought things to a prosperous issue, is doubly bound to shew himself thankful, both for the victory, and for those virtues by which the victory was got'ten. And indeed so far from weakness is the nature of such thanksgiving, that it may well be called the height of magnanimity; no virtue being so truly heroical, as that by which the spirit of man advanc eth itself, with confidence of acceptation, unto the love of God. In which sense, it is a brave speech that Evander in Virgil useth to Eneas, none but a Christian being capable of the admonition:

Aude hospes contemnere opes, et te quoque dignum
Finge Deo.'

With this philosophy, Amaziah, (as appears by his carriage,) troubled not his head; he had shewed himself a better man of war than any king of Judah, since the time of Jehoshaphat, and could be well contented, that his people should think him little inferior to David; of which honour he saw no reason why the prophets should rob him, who had made him lose an hundred talents, and done him no pleasure, he having prevailed by plain force and good conduct, without any miracle at all. That he was distempered with such vain thoughts as these, (besides the witness of his impiety following,) Jose

phus doth testify", saying, that he despised God, and that being puffed up with his good success, of which, nevertheless, he would not acknowledge God to be the author, he commanded Joash king of Israel to become his subject, and to let the ten tribes acknowledge him their sovereign, as they had done his ancestors king David and king Solomon. Some think that his quarrel to Joash was rather grounded upon the injury done to him by the Israelites, whom he dismissed in the journey against mount Sier. And likely it is, that the sense of a late wrong had more power to stir him up, than the remembrance of an old title forgotten long since, and by himself neglected thirteen or fourteen years. Nevertheless

it might so be, that when he was thus provoked, he thought it not enough to requite new wrongs, but would also call old matters into question; that so the kings of Israel might, at the least, learn to keep their subjects from offending Judah, for fear of endangering their own crowns. Had Amaziah desired only recompense for the injury done to him, it is not improbable that he should have had some reasonable answer from Joash, who was not desirous to fight with him. But the answer which Joash returned, likening himself to a cedar, and Amaziah, in respect of him, no better than a thistle, shews that the challenge was made in insolent terms, stuffed perhaps with such proud comparison of nobility, as might be made, (according to that which Josephus hath written,) between a king of ancient race, and one of less nobility than virtue. It is by Sophocles reported of Ajax, that, when going to the war of Troy, his father had bid him to be valiant, and get victory by God's assistance, he made answer, that, by God's assistance, a coward could get victory, but he would get it alone, without such help; after which proud speech, though he did many valiant acts, he had small thanks, and finally

5 Joseph. Ant. 1. ix. c. x.

6 Sophocles in Ajace Lon.

killing himself in a madness, whereinto he fell upon disgrace received, was hardly allowed the honour of burial. That Amaziah did utter such words, I do not find; but having once entertained the thoughts, which are parents of such words, he was rewarded with success according. The very first council wherein this war was concluded, serves to prove, that he was a wise prince indeed at Jerusalem, among his parasites; but a fool, when he had to deal with his equals abroad. For it was not all one, to fight with the Edomites, a weak people, trusting more in the site of their country, than the valour of their soldiers, and to encounter with Joash, who, from so poor beginnings, had raised himself to such strength, that he was able to lend his friend a hundred thousand men, and had all his nation exercised, and trained up, in a long victorious war. But as Amaziah discovered much want of judgment, in undertaking such a match; so in prosecuting the business, when it was set on foot, he behaved himself as a man of little experience, who having once only tried his fortune, and found it to be good, thought that in war there was nothing else to do, than send a defiance, fight, and win. Joash, on the contrary side, having been accustomed to deal with a stronger enemy than the king of Judah, used that celerity, which peradventure had often stood him in good stead against the Aramite. He did not sit waiting till the enemies broke in and wasted his country, but presented himself with an army in Judah, ready to bid battle to Amaziah, and save him the labour of a long journey. This could not but greatly discourage those of Judah; who, (besides the impression of fear which an invasion beats into people not inured to the like,) having devoured, in their greedy hopes, the spoil of Israel, fully persuading themselves to get as much, and at as easy a rate, as in the journey of Edom, were so far disappointed of their expectation, that well they might suspect all new assurance of good

luck, when the old had thus beguiled them. Notwithstanding all this, their king, that had stomach enough to challenge the patrimony of Solomon, thought, like another David, to win it by the sword.. The issue of which fool-hardiness, might easily have been foreseen in human reason; comparing together, either the two kings, or the quality of their armies, or the first and ominous beginning of the war. But mere human wisdom, howsoever it might foresee much, could not have prognosticated all the mischief that fell upon Amaziah. For as soon as the two armies came in sight, God, whose help this wretched man had so despised, did, (as Josephus reports it,) strike such terror and amazement into the men of Judah, that without one blow given, they fled all away, leaving their king to shift for himself, which he did so ill, that his enemy soon caught him, and made him change his glorious humour into most abject baseness. That the army which fled, sustained any other loss than of honour, I neither find in the scriptures, nor in Josephus; it being likely that the soon beginning of their flight, which made it the more shameful, made it also the more safe. But of the mischief that followed this overthrow, it was God's will that Amaziah himself should sustain the whole disgrace. For Joash carried him directly to Jerusalem, where he bade him procure that the gates might be opened, to let him in and his army; threatening him otherwise with present death. So much amazed was the miserable captive, with these dreadful words, that he durst do no other, than persuade the citizens to yield themselves to the conqueror. The town, which afterwards being in weaker state, held out two years against Nebuchadnezzar, was utterly dismayed, when the king, that should have given his life to save it, used all his force of command and entreaty to betray it. So the gates of Jerusalem were opened to Joash, with which honour, (greater than 7. Jos. Ant. 1. 9 c. 10,

any king of Israel had ever obtained,) he could not rest contented; but, the more to despite Amaziah and his people, he caused four hundred cubits of the wall to be thrown down, and entered the city in his chariot through that breach, carrying the king before him, as in triumph. This done, he sacked the temple, and the king's palace, and so, taking hostages of Amaziah, he dismissed the poor creature, that was glad of his life, and returned to Samaria.

SECT. IX.

A discourse of reasons hindering Joash from uniting Judah to the crown of Israel, when he had won Jerusalem, and held Amaziah prisoner. The end of Joash's reign.

WE may justly marvel how it came to pass, that Joash, being thus in possession of Jerusalem, having the king in his hands, his enemies forces broken, and his own entire, could be so contented to depart quietly with a little spoil, when he might have seized upon the whole kingdom. The reign of Athaliah had given him cause to hope, that the issue of David inight be dispossessed of that crown; his own nobility, being the son and grandchild of kings, together with the famous acts that he had done, were enough to make the people of Judah think highly of him; who might also have preferred his form of government before that of their own king's, especially at such a time, when a long succession of wicked princes had smothered the thanks which were due to the memory of a few good ones. The commodity that would have ensued, upon the union of all the twelve tribes, under one prince, is so apparent, that I need not to insist on it. That any message from God forbade the Israelites, (as afterwards, in the victory which Pekah, the son of Remaliah, got upon Ahaz,) to turn his present advantage to the best use, we do not read. All this makes it the more difficult

« AnteriorContinuar »